Beliefs abound in the debate on firearms and society, but one would hope that facts prevail in the academic literature on firearms and public health. Considering that firearms are a charged political issue, this is often not the case, as evidenced in Taichman and colleagues' editorial (1).

Although the belief that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's funding restrictions eliminated firearms research is widely promoted, this myth is based on mass media coverage of a white paper published by a gun control organization (the former Mayors Against Illegal Guns, now Everytown for Gun Safety). The literature on firearms has actually increased markedly in recent years, as John Lott from the Crime Prevention Research Center reports (2). Only a biased analysis of the literature produced the conclusion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's funding limitations blocked firearms research publications. Such rebuttals rarely find their way into the medical literature but often emerge in econometrics and criminal research journals. Indeed, I have had many letters to the editor rejected or outright ignored when attempting to correct beliefs with facts on firearms.